Myself. And I have a witness, 'cause Eiseley can vouch that I ripped myself off. And those were just the ones I've bothered to put on the computer -- the handwritten ones are still pristine photocopies of the originals which I sent to my nieces and nephews. Had ya worried, didn't I?

Well...I suppose he could have different personalities, and have them steal from each other. It would cause stress to the primary, because a sort of cognitive dissonance would ensue. But the real core question is who would be experiencing the stress?

They tell tales of rotten hosers in this town, going back, oh, as far as anyone remembers, every one of them rotten in their own special way, all of them complete hosers. Something about the water, the weather, the genes...no-one knows why. But this town has turned out legions of them--lacklusters, ne'er-do-wells, fuckups and bums, slackers moochers, sponges and losers. There's a new crop of them every few years or so. They run training sessions down at Molly's Midnight, the young ones gathering around the veterans, picking up tips on how to screw their lives up completely.

They grow up in nice suburban homes out by Fergus Estates, or on small farms in places like Joyland or Udney or down the shores of Simcoe.No matter. When the loser's streak is in your genes, you gravitate to Molly's, or the Palace over on Queen, or some dump like the Rooftop on Gill. Not just weekends. These hosers will roll in at opening any day of the week. They'll stretch two bucks worth of beer until closing time, shooting off their worthless mouths and starting fights.

Officer Dana knows them all, and she keeps a list in her squad car of the worst ones. My name's at the top,

My mother was passing through town, riding a freight car. My father was a hard-boiled private eye from Chicago named Chongo something. I was adopted by the McBride family who already had a disappointment named Don; they were hoping for something better.

They didn't get it. I'm a hoser, and I'm Shame. Shame McBride. I fall down a lot and slobber on myself.

Some guy who won't tell me his real name just promised me his second best set of brass knuckles if I would write down and send you the words to the song he's going to sing to me. Here you go:

Oh my Ma, she calls me Shane She has since I was young. But that don't be my real name I only got but one.

Chorus: You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

My Pa he called me sumpthin worse That I won't tell you here In case that Stilly River Sage Is lookin' o'er this verse.

You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

Now Rap, he calls me Shame That's still okay with me Coz he is just a stupid cuss That blankin' Rapaire

You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

Amos, yer lyin with what ya said, You don't know a thing or two Coz when you look in any glass, A hoser's starin back at you.

You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

Now I don't know that new one, What's her name, uh, "Eyes" But don't believe whatever's wrote I'm tellin you? they're lies!

You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

I hate them all?those birds of prey Big, medium or Little And Hawks are the worsest of them all They can't even play the fiddle.

You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

I'll make fun of all your names I'll do it night and day Coz no one knows my real one, Yer all to dumb to guess!

You can call me Shane Or you can call me Shame But no one knows me real name It's what I does to ye!

The guy has stopped singing and has crawled over to hunker in the corner. He's drooling and foaming at the mouth and seems to be gnawing on half of an old cowboy boot. No, maybe it's a dirty potato. I can't really tell. I'm going to go call the ambulance. I think this guy must be on some kind of bad trip or something. I wouldn't have written this down for him, but he did give me these really great brass knuckles. Sorry folks.

You know, I get chills sometimes, thinking about how I actually know him. And I saw Officer Dana once at the folk festival in Orillia. All I can say is, "Wowee". Some people sure look great in uniform. Mind you, I think she would look great in just about anything.

Of course no one but me remembered, and I found you fifth from the very bottom and beset by sundry low-lives and others like Shame McBride (who will forget his own mother today, because he was brought up by his Big Brother, Don, who now considers it a mistake).

There are Moms Whom make you breakfast And there are Moms Who swat your bum There are Moms Who teach you Latin Marching to A different drum There are Moms who patch your owies Confiscate your Maui Wowie But there's one Mom higher up Than all the rest. It's the Mom of freds and Catters Mom of poems and anti-matter, It's the one and only Mom of all BS!

These mothers DNA good have? We do not mothers have and for DNA good look and feed. The translator to the Overmind Galactic cursed lost and we will Overmind Galactic find and on DNA feast. A being found we by you called Hilton Paris a mother is she with DNA good? Tell us! Thank you we do.

To have a brood is to know life, Mother and helpmeet, friend and wife, Pluck me from my surly mood And let's go off and make a brood. Leave the vapors, troubles rude, Leave the strife and efforts crude! Come with me, and make a brood!

Nope. I decided to follow the Great Tradition of Rapaire and go shooting down at the gun shop on Morena. It's very entertaining. Got to unload a S&W PK .40 which packs one helluva punch very accurately. And to work out my old Colt revolver.

I spent the day driving to and picnicing at Chesterfield Reservoir. We visited old ghost town of Chesterfield, and I think I'll try some shore fishing up that way one of these days soon. I have to check out some of the fishin' holes before my brothers come out in the Fall for fishing. Not a problem with them, but it's getting harder and harder to get any dynamite (they use that fishing classic, the Du Pont Spinner). All I've got is an empty box that once held 50 pounds of Du Pont's best 60%. I'm thinking of foregoing the family tradition and using fish poison.

Why not mix your game devices? Pull the pickup to the side of the lake at night, turn on the lights, and if you see any fisheyes, let 'em have it with buckshot. They'll float to the top after they die.

Actually, Amos, I am very, very disappointed in you. Guns are very, very dangerous and I, for one, would NEVER EVER have one around. You know what Mark Twain said about guns:

Never handle firearms carelessly. The sorrow and suffering that have been caused through the innocent but heedless handling of firearms by the young! Only four days ago, right in the next farm house to the one where I am spending the summer, a grandmother, old and gray and sweet, one of the loveliest spirits in the land, was sitting at her work, when her young grandson crept in and got down an old, battered, rusty gun which had not been touched for many years and was supposed not to be loaded, and pointed it at her, laughing and threatening to shoot. In her fright she ran screaming and pleading toward the door on the other side of the room; but as she passed him he placed the gun almost against her very breast and pulled the trigger! He had supposed it was not loaded. And he was right?it wasn't. So there wasn't any harm done. It is the only case of that kind I ever heard of. Therefore, just the same, don't you meddle with old unloaded firearms; they are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them; you don't have to have a rest, you don't have to have any sights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his grandmother every time, at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it make one shudder.

Funny, I remember a time before there was ANY net, internet, local area net, wide area net, etc. You'd walk into the house and there would be a radio playing in the kitchen, and maybe an iron heating up, there might be a TV on in the TV room, but that was about it. Black rotary dial phones on each floor.

If you wanted to send someone a letter you sat down and wrote it on a typewriter or with a pen, stuck it in the envelope and sent it along. If it was an important letter, you made no mistakes or you had to start the whole page over.

Wiser and saner times on the whole, in my opinion, Amos, but we do have some neat stuff now, no doubt about that. Guitar accessories have made leaps and bounds in my lifetime, and Winona Ryder didn't exist prior to the early 1970s.

Sure she did, LH. She was a counter-intelligence officer for the French army stationed in Vietnam, and got taken out by the jealous brother of a tea-house cutie with whom the then "he" got entangled romantically. He was so surprised at having his brains blown out he decided to leave the whole guy business behind for a liftetime and sought out a quite farm in Winona, Minnesota (owned by the Horowitz family, good friends of Alan Ginsberg, the beat poet) to start his next life cycle as a cute girl.